Visitors
to the prison take the car marked "Penitentiary" leaving Tenth and
O Streets every forty minutes. The penitentiary is located in a suburb
called Lancaster, or rather, Lancaster is located at the penitentiary,
for outside of the prison there is but little else at Lancaster.
There is a railroad with a signpost but without a depot; there
is a post office with a few stamps, but without a postmaster
and there is a little store with root beer, but none of that
which made made Milwaukee famous.

Lancaster is a little independent
kingdom, for its inhabitants upon entering are not subject to
the laws of Nebraska, but to the rules and regulations set down
by the warden, the uncrowned king, who is a far more independent
ruler than any monarch of Europe, he being not only king, but
senate and house of representatives all in one; his

12

HELL IN NEBRASKA

word is law, and his will supreme.
The present ruler, William T. Fenton, of the Dynasty of Richardson county,
ascended the throne on January the eighteenth, 1913, and the inhabitants immediately
swore allegiance to him. The Crown Prince is the heir apparent
and the regent in the absence of the king; he is also called
the Deputy Warden, and his name is N. T. Harmon.

A cabinet of six high moguls assist in the government
and they are: Secretary of State and foreign affairs, Mr. James
O'Connell, (Chief Clerk); Secretary of Commerce, W. A. Kirby,
(Steward); Secretary of War, Dan Kavanaugh, (Assistant Deputy
Warden); Secretary of the Interior, Tom Cokely, (Yardmaster);
and Secretary of Agriculture, Gus Buchholz. The office of Secretary
of the Navy was discontinued by orders from the throne, the present
regime being much opposed to ships, especially schooners that
pass late in the night and carry forbidden cargoes.

HELL IN NEBRASKA

13

There is also a matron who has charge
of all the female inhabitants in the kingdom. At the present writing
there are seven, all of dusky hue, and all suffragettes. There
is a chief engineer, Mr. McCarthy, who makes the big wheels go
around, and makes the lights shine over the land. He is a man
of ability, a high grade mechanic and almost indispensable to
the state. There is a chaplain, who, with the exception of two
hours on the Sabbath morning, when he pilots the sinners toward
the pearly gate, is kept busy drawing and expending his enormous
salary. Then there are two turnkeys, who have the keys in their
custody and are the connecting links between the outside and
the inside, or rather, as a sanctimonious old lady mission worker
told me once, "they stand between good and evil." There
was vitriol in the stare she gave me when I answered: "You
are right, Madam, there are so many evil people wandering around
here craning their necks to get to look at the good people on
the inside.